昆曲：西厢记pdf/doc/txt格式电子书下载

书名：昆曲：西厢记pdf/doc/txt格式电子书下载

推荐语：隔墙花影动，疑是玉人来，千年才子佳人传奇，英文呈现昆曲之美

作者：黄少荣著

出版社：外语教学与研究出版社

出版时间：2013-12-01

书籍编号：30199024

ISBN：9787513538664

正文语种：英文

字数：329910

版次：1

所属分类：外语学习-英语读物

Preface to the Project

There are two Chinese terms that describe the dramatic performance on the stage in China: xijuand xiqu. The former is equivalent to the dramas in the West while the latter, frequently referred to as the Chinese national operas or Chinese local operas, is a native Chinese invention. Xiju,an imported art form from the Western literature, was introduced into China during the second half of the 19th century. Xiqu, on the other hand, has a much longer history.

As one of the three ancient dramatic forms in the world, Chinese national operas, together with ancient Greek tragedy and ancient Indian drama, have a long history of over two thousand years. It can be traced back to three types of primitive entertainment in China: exorcising dance, storytelling and ballad singing and comic dialogues. As early as the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), an art form began to emerge with all the three types of entertainment combined to give public shows, sometimes in the royal palaces and sometimes in Buddhist temples. It was recorded during the reign of Emperor Yang Guang (604-618) of the Sui Dynasty (581-618) that performers all over China were summoned by the emperor to provide entertainment from January 1st to 15th annually according to the Chinese lunar calendar. To prepare for the performance, stages were erected and lined up, stretching sometimes as long as four kilometers outside the imperial palace, a scene with a scale and grandeur that can hardly be imagined even in the 21st century. Gradually, other elements were added to the art form, encompassing acrobatics, martial arts, dancing,puppet shows and leather-silhouette shows. It was not until the 13th century that the prototype of Chinese national operas finally began to take shape.Right now, there are as many as three hundred different types of Chinese national operas active on the Chinese stage, attracting millions of theater-goers, both men and women, old and young. Xiquis definitely one of the crown jewels in Chinese culture.

The idea of introducing Chinese xiqu to the audience outside China has been brewing in my mind for quite some time, commencing in the mid-1980s when I was working on my Ph.D.dissertation in the United States. Since my dissertation, with the title of Shakespeare Through Chinese Eyes, is a comparative study of Shakespeare scholarship in China with that in the West, I reviewed more than three hundred introductory and critical essays of Shakespeare written by the Chinese scholars in the course of eighty years. While browsing these scholarly works, I suddenly felt an irresistible urge to introduce Chinese theatrical dramas to the audience of the West by translating and publishing a collection of xiqu in the United States. However, my first attempt was not successful since my proposal was declined by some American publishers on the ground that such a book would be too scholarly to attract local readers.I only managed to have a part of my first

chapter published in Shakespeare Quarterly as the leading essay in the Summer issue of the journal in 1986 with a note from the editor. But my initial idea has never wavered as I firmly believe that there is definitely an interest in the West in this area and I will wait for the \"right time\" to offer the \"right\"contents in a \"right\" way for the \"right\" audience.

Now, the moment I have been waiting for has finally come. After two years of preparation, \"The Project for Disseminating Chinese Operatic Dramas Overseas\" was eventually launched in October 2008 at Renmin University of China. The Project, which I am in charge of, is joined by a dozen of scholars who are proficient in both Chinese and English languages to work under my direct supervision. With the secured funding, the participation of the well-established scholars and the guaranteed publisher, I am enabled to expand my initial plan of simply translating a score of Chinese dramas into a more ambitious project with the following characteristics.

First, each drama is introduced as a book-length work. Instead of a simple translation project, the rendition of the opera script only takes up a small fraction, one third or one fourth, of the book. The focus of the book is on the cultural elements embodied in this particular form of the opera, which include but are not limited to narrative and dramatic sources of the opera, the authorship of the literary work, the dissemination of the literary work, the theatrical performance, the historical evolution of the opera and its various characteristics, stage practice and cultural interpretation of the story or the legend. In other words, the translated drama serves as a springboard of introducing Chinese culture. To achieve this goal, efforts have been made by a team of researchers to prepare sufficient raw materials for each perspective writer/translator before he or she embarks on a book.

Second, I make sure that each play script chosen for the book is of the authoritative version. The authorship of a Chin

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